Stairs Have Become the Enemy

Dearest fellows of the internet,

I really, really, really hate stairs. And Italy just has way too many of the darn things. You can't go anywhere in this town without seeing a set of damn steps. But hey, it's exercise...right?!

Anyways, this past week/weekend was pretty jam packed. I took some pictures of Firenze at night/sunset, and also made my to Cinque Terre to hike and see the towns for two days, and then went to this massive cemetery in Firenze...oh yea and obviously had classes and all of that wonderful stuff.

So first off, last week (or the week before) I can't quite remember, I walked around with some friends around the time of sunset to have an adventure and take some pictures. We walked all over Firenze, even all the way up to the high point, which is at least a 20 minute walk/hike from our hotel. It was quite a bit of fun and we may have just a little loopy by the end of it with some talk about noodle cakes and the wiggles...Anyways, here are some of the pictures from that little adventure:

The top is the Signoria/Uffizi at sunset, then the whole city view from the high point, and then the third is the Ponte Vecchio at sunset. I got super lucky with the bottom one because as we walked across the bridge this guy in his boat were right underneath the bridge. It was pretty nifty!

So the following weekend we actually had that Monday off because that Sunday was the Italian Independence day! Which was pretty cool and really nice to have a day off! So, some of my friends decided we should make the trip to Cinque Terre and stay for a night. We thought that the first day we would hike some of the paths, and then the second day we would chill on the beach.

We booked our hotel in the final town, Monterosso. When we got there after a two hour train ride, we rolled out and then proceeded to get lost trying to find our hotel...which we eventually found, but our rooms weren't ready at the time that they had told us they would be. So we stashed our stuff in a little room in our hotel and moved out to find the trail and buy our hiking passes. We also got lost trying to find that too...but we found it! And then proceeded up an innumerable amount of stairs on the side of the mountains that separate the towns. But, here's a view from the trail to the town that we stayed in.

These towns and the hike are so popular because the towns are so colorful against the background of the mountains. They're really quaint and pretty little towns and it was a lot of fun! Even if it was more tiring than climbing the Duomo. Here are a few more pictures I took during the hike between Monterosso and Vernazza.

I honestly have no idea how in the heck I managed to blur the last one the way that I did, but it looks pretty nifty!

So after a while of hiking we finally saw the next town, which is Vernazza. Here are some of the first views we got of it:

Vernazza was quite colorful, and rather close together on the coast. We made our down into the city and finally sat down for some much needed not standing or walking time. I decided to go back to the our town and explore there some more while they went for the second time. I was going to try and go back by train, but we actually saw this boat ferrying people between all the islands. I ended up doing that instead and it was pretty fun! Here are some photos from that little side excursion:

I explored Monterosso for a few hours and awaited the return of my friends. After they returned we managed to get into our rooms and then had some downtime before a delicious seafood dinner. I tried mussels for the first time and they were pretty good! We then played some cards in the courtyard late into the night and then awoke to dreary morning...which is not what someone wants to sea when we previously said that day would be a beach day. So, after much indecision we finally made the choice to go back to Firenze by train and just stay there the rest of Monday.

When we got back to Firenze it was late afternoon and after a while we realized that we hadn't eaten much that day, so we made our way over to a local Mexican restaurant that served some killer Margaritas. It was nice to finally have some Mexican food after too long of a break.

So, the past few weren't too eventful besides finally going into the Uffizi and taking an adventure into a large graveyard in Firenze. I only took pictures of one of those and it's the creepier of the two.

The graveyard was huge, literally one could walk through one part then find another part behind it and walk through that. It's very different from an American graveyard. Less grass, more stone and mausoleums. Some of the mausoleums were pretty massive, and even had basements. Here are some of the photographs of the creepy statues that I took that mark people's graves:

Yea, that last one is fairly creepy. But I haven't even dropped the creepiest ones yet in my opinion. We honestly wandered through the graveyard for at least 30 minutes. Each time I thought that I had seen the creepiest thing, there was something else that caught my eye. So, for the final two pictures in my post here are the two creepiest statues in the graveyard, in my opinion: (The first is kind of just weird, the second is actually pretty haunting.)

So, with those I will leave you all. Sorry this is so long, but I had a lot of pictures to upload.

For some reason this week we have become obsessed with ghost stories, so tonight we are actually going to a supposedly haunted fort to see if we can see anything...which will most likely end up with us scaring ourselves, screaming, and running away in fear. Wish us luck!!

Ciao for now,

Grace

The Beach and The Night

Man I am lagging on posting on here...hahahaha get it, get it? No just me? Alright then, lame joke. Anyways, these past few weeks have been fairly busy so I haven't been able to keep up with editing pictures as much as I would like. I know, bad photographer, blah, blah, blah.

 Anywaaaaaays, two weeks ago was pretty eventful. Besides visiting the Bargello, San Marco's I believe, and somewhere that for the life of me I can't remember for my Renaissance class. We also took a day trip to a place called Viareggio to visit the Mediterranean sea at the beach there! It was absolutely gorgeous, like no lie, the way that the mountains framed the beach made it absolutely picturesque. Plus the town was really pretty and colorful, as can be seen below.

See, when I picture a nice Italian town, I kind of picture Viareggio.

It was about 20 or 30 minute walk from the train station to the beach and then when we reached the beach, we were told that what we saw was private beach and we would have to pay to be on it. So, we stood there for a second deliberating whether or not the nice beach was worth the money when the woman told us there was a public beach down the way. Which was responded to with a very vigorous "Hell yeah." We proceeded to find the very small section of beach that was public, put our things down and headed straight for the water...at least that's what I did. The water was a little chilly, but the sun was just perfect. Sunbathing ensued, and then the realization that we could walk along the shore of the private beach came along and we took off walking. Here's some of the view from the beach.

Some of these look rather similar, I realize. I just couldn't decide which ones I really liked the best. So here's all of them! So after a few hours at the beach we decided to catch a train home and grab some grub from one our favorite places. The Diner. The Diner is an American food style restaurant that is absolutely delicious. And sometimes you just need a little bit of that home style cooking in your food.

But, on the way to the train station we walked across these really adorable kids who were trying to catch these massive balloons that this guy was blowing with some rope and a bucket of the balloon soap stuff. They were awesome and gigantic and the little kids were absolutely adorable as they ran after them and tried to catch them. I didn't too good of the picture of the act, but this is the best one that I did get.

That week I also went out and walked around at night with my camera with a group of people. We walked around Firenze quite a bit and then managed to make our way to the high point. The high point is a this big plaza that's up on the side of one of the mountains near the city's edge. It's not too bad of a walk, and it gives an incredible view of the city at night and during the day. You can see just about every major landmark from the high point. Here are a few of the photo's I took there too:

You can see the Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, the Bargello, the Signoria, and Santa Croce in those pictures. So yea, it's quite a view. Also on the high point is a replica of the statue of David. I think the actual name of it is the Piazza of David...or something more Italian than that that I can't remember right now. But, here's David! (Or his copy)

Oh and I can't forget to mention that on the way to the high point we ran across this weird medieval fair thing going on down by the bank of the Arno. It was pretty cool because they had the tents set up selling different things along with performers who were doing all sorts of fancy things like flipping flags around and tossing some fire around. It was pretty nifty and I think a one night kind of thing.

But yea, this post doesn't have all of the pictures I've taken the last two weeks partially because I haven't finished editing them. I've been super busy with classes and homework and tests and sleeping so these are taking longer than expected. Plus the wifi here is poopy so it takes each picture like five minutes just to upload to Blogspot. But hey, those are just bad excuses! I'll try to be better about uploading on here! Oh and my friend Kelsey Padgham has joined me this week for a few days which is super exciting!! Speaking of friends also, here are some of the ones I've made on my trip.

And Emily looking like a model...which she'll hate me for putting this picture up here, but it's a damn good picture!

Anyways, ciao for now! I'll try to update with more pictures again soon!!




Grace

A Few Days Later

Buongiorno!

Update number two! As I have learned Italy is a very noisy place, even at night. There is a constant sound of street cleaning going on and then the occasional police siren. (The sirens are quite different from those in the States, more wooey...) Anyways, I managed to get a pretty haunting picture of the Duomo from the roof of the hotel that I'm staying in. I don't know if I mentioned this in my first post, but the view from our hotel's roof is ridiculous. You can see so far out through the city as well as the majority of the major landmarks.

The past few days have a been a blur of wandering, drunken roommates, sleep deprivation, and learning pretty much. Today was a pretty good day though because I had a solid amount of time to go and visit some places with my camera that I had not yet been to. I first ventured over to the Piazza Della Signoria which is one of the Medici's big ass palaces that they ruled in while they were such a big influence in Italy. Here's a good idea of how massive it is:

Now, right next to the Piazza Della Signoria is the Uffizi. It's this sort of sheltered area that has something like nine statues inside. What's nice about the Uffizi is that one can sort of stop and have a seat inside and admire the works of art as well as get some pretty decent people watching in. And people watching in Italy is pretty fantastic. I can't name all of the statues by name exactly, and by can't name all of them, I mean I can't name any. But, I did take some pictures of them so here are those:

The only one that I kind of know is the last one, but I can't remember the exact name. It's the rape of someone...which is great, but hey sculpting and the Renaissance...weird. Anyways, there is actually another statue right by the building Signoria and I believe that it is supposed to be Poseidon. It's actually a fountain with spraying water and lights and fanciness at night. It's got a lot to it, but I only captured Poseidon:

*Sexy look off to the side* Now, if you venture past the fountain and down past the big palace you come upon another ornate building. I believe it is some sort of museum, although the name of it escapes me now. What really caught my eye is the sculpting and the figures on it. They are all very detailed and cover a lot of the building.

Obviously a lot of influence on Italian art is religion, considering its massive catholic population. So you can see some cherubs and crosses in a lot of art all around Italy. Now however, what has really caught my eye in the city is the amount of street art there is. One cannot venture down a street without seeing some sort of graffiti on a building, vehicle, or whatever the tagger thought would work. Some of my favorites though are what they do to Do Not Enter signs. Here are some examples, but there are a lot more:

The Pacman guy is probably near the top. Now the final picture I'll upload today is probably the one that I'm most proud of at the moment. It's of the San Lorenzo church, one of the oldest churches in Florence. It was created by the help of the Medici obviously, seeing as how they usually had a hand in everything that went on Florence at the time it was built. We actually took a tour of it today for my Renaissance class, sadly no cameras are permitted inside really any historical building in Europe so I couldn't capture any of that. The inside though is full of wonderful arches, Corinthian pillars, and a whole bunch of other fancy architectural terms. Here it is:

That's all I got today. I gotta run off to see an Italian movie!



Ciao!


Grace

Waking up in Firenze

Ciao ragazzi! 

My name's Grace, and I'm in Italy! (Say whaaa?) I'm studying abroad for the next six weeks in Florence primarily. Apparently before I studied abroad I was supposed to take a class that was going to help me figure out what I was going to make my senior thesis over...I didn't do that. So, this blog is to help me remember what I did over here and be able to link it back to what I want to focus on my senior year for my project.

Pretty much what I'm saying is this blog is really for me, but I guess it's okay if you people read it as well.

I started writing this at 12 in the afternoon here, and 6 am in the States where I'm from. Jet lag has definitely set in, even after a solid 10 hours sleep last night, I've been pretty tired all day. It also helps that after traveling non stop for something like nine hours I was able to pass out right away after dinner last night.

I don't want to get ahead of my self now, I arrived in Florence at about 3:40 pm their time yesterday. It took about 20 minutes to get to the hotel and then another 10 to throw my stuff in my room and head out for a walk with a group of other IU students who were going to head out while I checked in.

This city is massive. There are vendors on almost every corner and a Gelato place on every block. This sounds really cliche, but seriously it's the truth. There are so many Gelato places it's ridiculous and fattening and obviously really delicious. There are also people everywhere. Bloomington pedestrians have nothing on this place, the street and the sidewalk are pretty much the same area with the occasional taxi pushing people out of the way. Also the taxi drivers are so bold here, I've seen one already drive up onto the curb to get around construction and down a street full of people.

The history of the place is honestly amazing. The Duomo is even bigger in real life, and there are countless other historical places surrounding the area. We took a quick walk to the Arno River and were able see even more places across the river. The amount to do in the area is astounding.

I finally had the time to head out with my camera today and explore some more by myself. I headed around the Duomo and around a few streets. It was mostly to be able to get a feel of the city, and a reason to get out of the room and carry my camera with me. Here are some of the pictures I took while I was out:

First: Street by the hotel.
Second: Roof of the Duomo.
Third: The Back of the Duomo.
Fourth: Street art on the construction walls around the Duomo.
Fifth: The tower of the Duomo.

I included the bird because I thought that it was some pretty cool street art. Mostly I took pictures of the Duomo today, because I didn't have too much time to venture elsewhere, but they turned out beautifully.

Although it was a little cloudy and rainy today, it was still amazing. The constant ringing of church bells and the chattering of the Italians on the street really sets a mood. I know this post isn't too exciting, but I'm going to try and make it out everyday to take pictures. Let's just hope that the clouds take a break and I can see a sunny Firenze!

Ciao for now,

Grace